It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

First thing I thought after “size of a house” was, “wait, is that an American or European house?”

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

Average office/residential building stories are 9-10ft, or about 3m (so about 15m tall).

And quick bit of googling found this:

Quote:

"In all, Mount St. Helens released 24 megatons of thermal energy, 7 of which was a direct result of the blast. This is equivalent to 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima" (U.S. Geological Survey).

So that makes the Tunguska body about 4x larger and it produced an almost 16x larger explosion.

Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

Detonating 550kt of TNT in one place would be interesting. One thing is that the blast probably wouldn't amount to anything like 550kt unless you could find a way to ignite every part of the roughly 80m cube simultaneously.

(This post brought to you by the Joules For Explosive Measurement campaign).

Edit - Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 73 years ago. The general public doesn't have a clue about the size of nuclear explosions.An army officer involved in planning for tactical nuclear war once remarked to me that "the reason the British Army isn't allowed to join CND is that most of us would, because we actually understand nuclear weapons."

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

It's humbling.

The Fartsworth Scale. That has a certain ring to it. A little less crude than the Who Cut The Cheese Metric.

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

It's humbling.

The Fartsworth Scale. That has a certain ring to it. A little less crude than the Who Cut The Cheese Metric.

If my math is right, and it probably isn't.....the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was roughly 1,400,000,000 MegaToots

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

Would be very nice to stick to normal SI units. I have no idea what a five story building is supposed to be nor any real feel for the energy released by the Mt St Helens.

You provide all the information needed to compare the two explosions, but you chose to describe each of them using different terminology and/or metaphors. As a result, the reader has to do math just to comprehend a comparison your story relies upon.

You are supposed to be making complex things simpler here. If you need to make a comparison between two objects in order to make your point, don't obscure it just to use different grammar.

Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

Detonating 550kt of TNT in one place would be interesting. One thing is that the blast probably wouldn't amount to anything like 550kt unless you could find a way to ignite every part of the roughly 80m cube simultaneously.

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Our mission is to empower the world’s citizens to advance space science and exploration. We advocate for space and planetary science funding in government, inspire and educate people around the world, and develop and fund groundbreaking space science and technology.

We introduce people to the wonders of the cosmos, bridging the gap between the scientific community and the general public to inspire and educate people from all walks of life.

We give every citizen of the planet the opportunity to make their voices heard in government and effect real change in support of space exploration.

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Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

Detonating 550kt of TNT in one place would be interesting. One thing is that the blast probably wouldn't amount to anything like 550kt unless you could find a way to ignite every part of the roughly 80m cube simultaneously.

(This post brought to you by the Joules For Explosive Measurement campaign).

Edit - Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 73 years ago. The general public doesn't have a clue about the size of nuclear explosions.An army officer involved in planning for tactical nuclear war once remarked to me that "the reason the British Army isn't allowed to join CND is that most of us would, because we actually understand nuclear weapons."

It's amazing how left wing jew hating bigots find mythical army officers that back what they say. FYI the armed forces are not allowed to campaign for any political organization let alone one funded by KGB through the British communist party like CND

Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

Detonating 550kt of TNT in one place would be interesting. One thing is that the blast probably wouldn't amount to anything like 550kt unless you could find a way to ignite every part of the roughly 80m cube simultaneously.

(This post brought to you by the Joules For Explosive Measurement campaign).

Edit - Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 73 years ago. The general public doesn't have a clue about the size of nuclear explosions.An army officer involved in planning for tactical nuclear war once remarked to me that "the reason the British Army isn't allowed to join CND is that most of us would, because we actually understand nuclear weapons."

It's amazing how left wing jew hating bigots find mythical army officers that back what they say. FYI the armed forces are not allowed to campaign for any political organization let alone one funded by KGB through the British communist party like CND

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

It's humbling.

The Fartsworth Scale. That has a certain ring to it. A little less crude than the Who Cut The Cheese Metric.

Well, the Fartsworth scale is the old imperial measurement system. Twelve slips of the bum makes one toot, and 3 toots makes a bumtrumpet. Eight bumtrumpets and you have a follow through.

Whereas, in Europe, they use the metric system. Its just farts, up and down. You have microfarts, millifarts, farts, kilofarts, megafarts, gigafarts. Hiroshima was approximately 1.21 gigafarts - no that is not a coincidence.

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

It's humbling.

The Fartsworth Scale. That has a certain ring to it. A little less crude than the Who Cut The Cheese Metric.

If my math is right, and it probably isn't.....the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was roughly 1,400,000,000 MegaToots

This is so confusing. Exactly what is a "megatoot"? Isn't a toot a small fart? And "mega" means extremely large? So a megatoot is an extremely large small fart? If so, then a megatoot is roughly equivalent to an average fart, which throws off your calculations. I'm no mathematician, but I's say it was closer to 2,800,000,000 megatoots.

You provide all the information needed to compare the two explosions, but you chose to describe each of them using different terminology and/or metaphors. As a result, the reader has to do math just to comprehend a comparison your story relies upon.

You are supposed to be making complex things simpler here. If you need to make a comparison between two objects in order to make your point, don't obscure it just to use different grammar.

Came down here to say the same thing. That paragraph is all over the place when it comes to units, none of them directly comparable to one another and no method give for conversions. Meters and, maybe, kilotons would have worked for all of the events described, and would make direct comparisons between them possible.

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

It's humbling.

The Fartsworth Scale. That has a certain ring to it. A little less crude than the Who Cut The Cheese Metric.

Well, the Fartsworth scale is the old imperial measurement system. Twelve slips of the bum makes one toot, and 3 toots makes a bumtrumpet. Eight bumtrumpets and you have a follow through.

Whereas, in Europe, they use the metric system. Its just farts, up and down. You have microfarts, millifarts, farts, kilofarts, megafarts, gigafarts. Hiroshima was approximately 1.21 gigafarts - no that is not a coincidence.

Gotta love the Europeans and their attention to detail. I figured an approximation would suffice. But, when measuring fart power we gotta give the nerds something to do.

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

It's humbling.

The Fartsworth Scale. That has a certain ring to it. A little less crude than the Who Cut The Cheese Metric.

Well, the Fartsworth scale is the old imperial measurement system. Twelve slips of the bum makes one toot, and 3 toots makes a bumtrumpet. Eight bumtrumpets and you have a follow through.

Whereas, in Europe, they use the metric system. Its just farts, up and down. You have microfarts, millifarts, farts, kilofarts, megafarts, gigafarts. Hiroshima was approximately 1.21 gigafarts - no that is not a coincidence.

How many Olympic-size swimming pools filled with nitroglycerin is that?

You provide all the information needed to compare the two explosions, but you chose to describe each of them using different terminology and/or metaphors. As a result, the reader has to do math just to comprehend a comparison your story relies upon.

You are supposed to be making complex things simpler here. If you need to make a comparison between two objects in order to make your point, don't obscure it just to use different grammar.

Came down here to say the same thing. That paragraph is all over the place when it comes to units, none of them directly comparable to one another and no method give for conversions. Meters and, maybe, kilotons would have worked for all of the events described, and would make direct comparisons between them possible.

Considering it was a hundred years ago and nobody really could measure the event with any certainty, I'm satisfied with 'It was really fuckin' big, man.'But that's just me.

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

I prefer simpler things, like Chelyabinsk was roughly the energy of of 70,000,0000,000,000 firecrackers, and Tunguska's explosion was roughly 253,023,705,853,00 average farts worth.

It's humbling.

The Fartsworth Scale. That has a certain ring to it. A little less crude than the Who Cut The Cheese Metric.

Well, the Fartsworth scale is the old imperial measurement system. Twelve slips of the bum makes one toot, and 3 toots makes a bumtrumpet. Eight bumtrumpets and you have a follow through.

Whereas, in Europe, they use the metric system. Its just farts, up and down. You have microfarts, millifarts, farts, kilofarts, megafarts, gigafarts. Hiroshima was approximately 1.21 gigafarts - no that is not a coincidence.

How many Olympic-size swimming pools filled with nitroglycerin is that?

Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

But how many of those little wads of paper filled with powder that you throw and go POP does Mt St. Helens equal?

Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

i like the “hiroshima’s” option. it serves the purpose for laymen like me even better than “nuclear” and it avoids calling up echoes of radiation in my head (plus, you saved me from having to google whether asteroids leave radioactive stuff behind).

It would be nice when comparing the two asteroids to use the same units for both. In the Chelyabinsk example, the size given is a five storey building, in the Tunguska example, it is in feet / meters. The explosion of the Chelyabinsk is a 550 kiloton nuclear explosion, the Tunguska given as the same amount of power as the eruption of Mt St Helens!

Would be very nice to stick to normal SI units. I have no idea what a five story building is supposed to be nor any real feel for the energy released by the Mt St Helens.

Take your SI units and stick 'em where the sun don't shine. Gimme some cubits and librae!

Technically correct, but the qualifier "nuclear" is redundant. Kiloton refers to amounts of TNT, so nuclear explosions are measured in equivalent amounts of TNT. Since there is no nuclear fallout from these meteor strikes, adding "nuclear" can be a bit misleading to the casual reader.

On the other hand, maybe the general public is more familiar with sizes of nuclear explosions, in which case one might call it "30 Hiroshima's".

But how many of those little wads of paper filled with powder that you throw and go POP does Mt St. Helens equal?

No idea, but if you instead want a fun prank....buy a bean bag chair and fill it with those little popper to scare the bejesus out of your friends and loved ones/possibly maim them.

You provide all the information needed to compare the two explosions, but you chose to describe each of them using different terminology and/or metaphors. As a result, the reader has to do math just to comprehend a comparison your story relies upon.

You are supposed to be making complex things simpler here. If you need to make a comparison between two objects in order to make your point, don't obscure it just to use different grammar.

Came down here to say the same thing. That paragraph is all over the place when it comes to units, none of them directly comparable to one another and no method give for conversions. Meters and, maybe, kilotons would have worked for all of the events described, and would make direct comparisons between them possible.

Yes. It would be fine if the "5-story building" and "Mount Saint Helens" descriptions were given following the more standard units.

You provide all the information needed to compare the two explosions, but you chose to describe each of them using different terminology and/or metaphors. As a result, the reader has to do math just to comprehend a comparison your story relies upon.

You are supposed to be making complex things simpler here. If you need to make a comparison between two objects in order to make your point, don't obscure it just to use different grammar.

Came down here to say the same thing. That paragraph is all over the place when it comes to units, none of them directly comparable to one another and no method give for conversions. Meters and, maybe, kilotons would have worked for all of the events described, and would make direct comparisons between them possible.

Considering it was a hundred years ago and nobody really could measure the event with any certainty, I'm satisfied with 'It was really fuckin' big, man.'But that's just me.

The area was Birch forest and they got the blast radius from the trees knocked down. The photo at the top of the story is a case in point.

You provide all the information needed to compare the two explosions, but you chose to describe each of them using different terminology and/or metaphors. As a result, the reader has to do math just to comprehend a comparison your story relies upon.

You are supposed to be making complex things simpler here. If you need to make a comparison between two objects in order to make your point, don't obscure it just to use different grammar.

Came down here to say the same thing. That paragraph is all over the place when it comes to units, none of them directly comparable to one another and no method give for conversions. Meters and, maybe, kilotons would have worked for all of the events described, and would make direct comparisons between them possible.

Considering it was a hundred years ago and nobody really could measure the event with any certainty, I'm satisfied with 'It was really fuckin' big, man.'But that's just me.

The area was Birch forest and they go the blast radius from the trees knocked down. The photo at the top of the story is a case in point.

Never thought of that. Knocked down trees does give it certainty, So, we'll use the Birch Tree Standard. Problem solved!